


Revitalization

by kalirush



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Ishval, Language, Post-Canon, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23018281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/pseuds/kalirush
Summary: Miles packed up his notebook and picked up his satchel as the other students filed out of the tent they were using as a classroom.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Revitalization

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reconditarmonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/gifts).



> Thanks to songofsunset, who was both my beta and my artist.

Miles packed up his notebook and picked up his satchel as the other students filed out of the tent they were using as a classroom. 

“I’m the worst student in the class, and they’re all twelve-year-olds,” he said, wryly. 

The nameless Ishvalan might have smiled at him. It was difficult to tell, but there might have been a quirk to his lip. “You’re not so bad as all that,” he said.

But Miles knew what it was to excel at something, knew what it was to fail at it, and he was as bad as that. The strange consonants of Ishvalan scraped mercilessly across the back of his mouth and stuck against his tongue, refusing to emerge in the graceful hushing sounds that the children around him produced. The words seemed to leak out of his head almost faster than they entered it, and the graceful script that he’d always admired remained as opaque as ever, twisting and flitting on the edges of his abused memory. 

He could have joined a class for adults. He was not the only expatriate son of Ishvala whose red eyes had drawn him back to the desert to help with the rebuilding. Many of those who had lived in Amestrian ghettos all their lives had a thirst to connect to their people, to their blood, and to the religion that their brothers and sisters had died for. And the Ishvalan religion, as his nameless brother was so fond of saying, was impossible to separate from their ancient language. 

But Miles had decided to take _this_ class, with _this_ teacher, and he was failing badly at it. “It would be easier if I were twelve,” he said, glumly. 

“It would be,” the nameless man said, rolling his papers tightly and tying them. “Children are born to learn language, and they learn it with a quickness that we elders might envy. Still, you may take longer to learn it, but when you are done, you will carry it with you forever.”

They walked out of the tent together, into the bright desert sunshine. “I should not be teaching these children,” his nameless brother said, in his low, quiet rumble. 

“If not you, then who?” Miles said, as he had so many times before. There were many of the surviving Ishvalans who spoke the ancient language well enough to sing the prayers, many who could swear by their god or ward off bad luck if they had to. There were few left who remembered it well enough to teach. The Ishvalan monks and priests- trained in combat as well as in religion- had been the first to die. “If I can bear to learn the language, as poor a student as I am, then you can bear to be our teacher.”

“ _Feicho’a maro’ie, shoya_ ,” the nameless man said. That was _student_ , at the end, which Miles had heard often enough. The first word was a verb of some kind, but he hadn’t caught the word in the middle at all.

It didn’t matter; he knew the correct response regardless. “ _Mate, shabiya_ ,” he said. _Yes, teacher_.


End file.
